


Joyeux Noël

by ssclassof56



Series: Then Live With Me and Be My Love [9]
Category: The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (TV)
Genre: Christmas, Christmas Fluff, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-28
Updated: 2018-12-28
Packaged: 2019-09-29 12:04:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,631
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17203091
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ssclassof56/pseuds/ssclassof56
Summary: Family fluff with Christmas lights, cookies, and a hot tub.





	Joyeux Noël

A solemn voice piped along to the cassette player like a chorister in the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols. 

“Jingle bells. Batman smells. Robin laid an egg. Batmobile lost a wheel, and the Joker got away.”

Faustina pulled her head from the cabinet, laughing. “A festive little ditty. Did your brothers teach you that?”

“Yes,” her daughter answered from her perch on the countertop.

“Have you ever seen that TV show?”

“In New York.” Liliya continued to stir the cookie dough. “Uncle Napoleon would make a good Batman.”

Faustina leaned over, the step-stool teetering precariously, to peer into another cabinet. “Well, he’d definitely like the Bruce Wayne part.”

“And Papa would be Robin.”

“Have you shared this observation with your father yet? “ She smiled as her daughter shook her head. “Good. I want to be there when you do.”

Faustina hopped off the stool. “I can’t find that…,” she murmured something under her breath “cookie press anywhere.”

“What kind of cookie press?”

“Never you mind. Your father won’t be happy if I teach you any more rude words.”

“Neither will my teacher.”

“True.” Faustina yanked open drawers she had checked once already. “She may never get over what you called the class rabbit.”

“It bit me.”

“Well, in the future, bite your tongue.” 

She shut the drawers with a bang and crossed to look over her daughter’s shoulder at the dough. “That’s good. We don’t want them to get tough.”

Leaving the spoon in the bowl, Liliya scooted closer to the window. “Why aren’t we helping Papa put up the lights?”

Faustina looked out across the snow-covered garden. She smiled fondly as her husband shimmied up a tree, a coil of lights looped on his shoulder. “He prefers to do it himself. It’s peaceful out there, and he can be as meticulous as he likes about the placement. I wish he was as concerned about the clothes still sitting on the bathroom floor.”

Liliya giggled, and Faustina tweaked one of her brown braids. “Don’t tell him I said that.”

Two figures trudged into view, dragging more bundles of lights behind them.

“Why are Sasha and Léon helping?”

Faustina shook her head as her sons flopped down into the snow to untangle their mess. “Because they’re working their way off Santa’s naughty list.”

“Will they get to help bake cookies later?” 

“Later they get to help replace a toilet.”

A tug-of-war over a strand of lights quickly turned into a wrestling match. Faustina rapped sharply on the cold window. “Knock it off.”

The twins looked back with gestures of bewildered innocence. 

“They can’t hear you,” Liliya said.

“No, but they can understand this.” Faustina sliced a finger across her throat.

“What’s she mad about?” Sasha asked, shaking the snow from his woolen cap and cramming it back over his blond hair. 

“I dunno. Did you put back that cookie thing?”

“Nope, I forgot. She really needs to get an electric one. It’s hard to extrude a consistent bead with that squeeze trigger.”

“I need more lights,” Illya called. Squatting on a heavy bough, he reached down and snapped his fingers. 

Léon tugged on a strand, which remained firmly entangled in the bird’s nest of wire and bulbs. “It’s gonna be a few minutes.”

“What have you done now?” Illya swung down from the tree to land gracefully in the snow.

“Eight out of ten, Pop,” Sasha said.

“Yeah, it would have been cooler if you’d flipped.”

Illya walked over to them. “I have a feeling I’ll be flipping out shortly. Where are my lights?”

“Right here. They got a bit tangled.”

“A bit?” He crouched down and poked at the ravages of his once tidy coils. “How did you manage this between here and the garage?”

“Actually, it was easier than it looks.”

“That was not a compliment.”

“Do you want us to get more?”

“Later. First you are going to fix these.” He sat down next to the pile. “I will help. I need a break.”

Three blond heads in three of Mrs. Waverly’s finest knitted toques bent over the task. 

“Pop, why do we do this party?” Sasha asked.

“When your mother and I bought this place, we decided it would be selfish to keep it to ourselves.” He looked up at the house with a mixture of pride and embarrassment. “So we open it up to others whenever we can.” 

“Uncle Napoleon calls it your Chateau.”

“I know.”

“And he calls you Monsieur le Duc,” Léon offered in his uncle’s lamentable accent.

“Yes, he does,” Illya hissed.

“Why did Mr. Waverly open the retirement homes?”

“He saw a need and filled it.”

“Franck’s grandfather lives with them. Why don’t those agents go live with their kids?” Léon asked.

“Yeah, I mean someday when this house is mine, I won’t kick you out. You and Ma could still live here.”

“Thank you,” Illya said dryly.

“Who says you get the house?” Léon demanded, kicking his twin.

“Stop it,” Illya snapped.

“I’d rather have the New York place anyway,” Léon murmured as he withdrew his foot.

Illya sighed. “Dedicating your life to a cause often means sacrificing other things, like a home and family. The holidays can be especially lonely. This party is a way to honor those who gave up so much to UNCLE and to spread some Yuletide cheer.”

“You and Ma had a family,” Sasha said.

Illya looked at his house, his wife and daughter framed by the kitchen window. Liliya, draped in one of his old shirts, a smudge of flour on her nose, held open a piping bag. Faustina stood beside her spooning dough into the cone of cloth, probably offering another vulgar epithet for a bloodthirsty rabbit. He turned back to his sons, who by their wordless, intuitive cooperation and with the occasional jab of an elbow, had almost managed to free one string of bulbs.

Illya heaved an exaggerated sigh and rolled his eyes. “Yes, we did. I cannot imagine what we were thinking.”

The twins looked at each other. “Oh, Pop, you’re gonna be in trouble.”

“Yeah, we’re telling Ma you said that.”

“Not if you’re wrapped in lights and part of the decorations,” Illya declared and launched himself at his sons. 

He was hog-tying Léon with Sasha astride his back counting off the time when a snowball hit his shoulder.

“Where is my cookie press?” His wife stood over them, hands on her hips, eyes flashing. 

Illya looked down at Léon. “I thought you put that back.”

“We forgot,” he said, scrambling to his feet. 

Sasha slid off Illya’s back. “Plus we couldn’t get all the thermite out.” 

“So you were going to have me serve our guests cookies laced with explosives?”

“Actually, Ma,” Sasha interjected, “it didn’t produce an explosion, but an exothermic reduction-oxida-”

Illya put his hand over Sasha’s mouth. “Hush, son. She knows what thermite does.”

“Yeah, she’s demonstrating it with her eyes,” Léon added.

“I will buy you a new one,” Illya said. “Electric.”

Sasha pulled his father’s fingers down. “Yeah, electric. That will make it so much easier next time, right, Pop?”

Faustina scooped up another handful of snow. “Run,” Illya shouted. He and the twins sprinted away toward the garage, his wife in hot, multilingual pursuit.

 

“A few more steps.”

“Okay.”

“No peeking.”

“I won’t.”

Illya stopped his wife at the edge of the terrace and removed his hands from her eyes. “What do you think?”

Faustina clapped her hands together. “It’s beautiful.”

A fresh fall of snow glistened pristinely atop the lawn, illuminated by thousands of tiny white lights. They twinkled with regimental precision over every hedge and tree and along each flagstone path. Holiday greetings in all the languages of UNCLE, spelled out in welded metal and lights, glowed along the tree line down to the lake.

Illya nestled against his wife’s back, his arms wrapped around her, his cheek resting on her hair. He sighed and said earnestly, “I am thankful for all of this. For you. Our family. Our home.” 

Faustina raised her hand to cup his face, her voice breathless as she responded, “Where did that come from?”

He shrugged. “I know I do not say it often enough.”

Her face tilted toward his, and he pressed a kiss onto her temple. “I also picked up the bathroom.”

“Thank you.”

“That’s all I get.” 

She rotated in his arms and laid her hands on his shoulders. “Well, I did think it’d be a nice night for the hot tub, considering we have the whole evening to ourselves.”

“Choir rehearsal is only an hour.”

With a mischievous smile, she undid the ties at the top of his ushanka so the flaps fell down over his ears. “Afterwards, the Müllers are taking all the kids to the Christmas Market.”

“Tidings of comfort and joy.” He leaned closer, his misty breath mingling with hers.

“And the Joker got away,” she murmured as their lips met.

He drew back, her teeth raking his bottom lip, and rubbed his cold nose along hers. “Is the water heating up?”

“Mm-hm.”

“And the towel warmer?”

“I forgot.”

“You always do.”

She took his hand and, walking backwards, pulled him toward the glass-enclosed porch on one side of the terrace. As her eyes swept over the sparkling lawn, she laughed. “Did the boys help you with the words too?”

“Yes. Why?” He turned around to see where she pointed. Along the trees, between the German and Italian, stood the French Christmas greeting. It now spelled out ‘JOYEUX LEON.’

“Those blockheads.” He dropped his wife’s hand and marched toward the lawn. 

Her whistle stopped him. As he looked back, she pulled aside the collar of her heavy coat, revealing one completely bare shoulder.

Illya smiled. “I’ll fix it tomorrow.”


End file.
